Army Seeks Lightweight Power Sources

Published 8:00 pm, Wednesday, May 7, 2003

The U.S. Army is putting $25 million behind a venture capital fund that will invest in companies developing lighter power sources for soldiers increasingly burdened with electronics.

Called the Venture Capital Initiative, the effort will be modeled after the CIA's In-Q-Tel program, which has a $30 million annual budget.

That program, launched in 1999, has backed about 40 companies and co-invested alongside some of the best known private venture capital firms, including Silicon Valley's Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The Army described its interests in developing lighter and longer-lasting energy sources as parallel to "those fueling the commercial market."

The Army's chief scientist, A. Michael Andrews, said, "Finding new energy sources for soldiers is akin to a search for better power solutions for handheld computers like Palm Pilots, BlackBerries, personal digital assistants and cell phones. Lighter and smaller is better."

The initiative will be managed through a non-profit corporation, OnPoint Technologies Inc. of Maitland, Fla.

OnPoint will reach out to technology companies that ordinarily may not do business with the federal government.

Many technology companies have been slow to consider the federal government or military as a customer given the red tape involved.

That is starting to change, given the economic downturn and increase in federal technology spending.

Funds for the program were originally earmarked in the 2002 Department of Defense Appropriations Act.